Ten years after the Seven fell, their sons marched on Thebes again — Alcmaeon and Amphilochus leading the Epigoni to victory at Glisas, Laodamas slain or fled, and Thersander son of Polynices set upon the throne until Troy claimed him too.1
The second muster
When the Epigoni were grown, Alcmaeon son of Amphiaraus and Amphilochus his brother asked the oracle whether they should avenge their fathers. Apollo answered that they would conquer when they had a leader; they chose Alcmaeon, and Adrastus who alone of the Seven had survived sailed with them from Argos.2
Battle at Glisas
The Epigoni met the Thebans at Glisas and broke them. Aegialeus son of Adrastus fell in the fighting — the only Epigon slain — while Laodamas son of Eteocles was killed by Alcmaeon, or in another telling led the survivors away by night to the Encheleans in Illyria.3
Thersander king
The Argives dismantled the lower town of Thebes and set Thersander son of Polynices upon the throne. Pausanias saw the tomb of Aegialeus at Pegae and the memorials of the Epigoni at Thebes; when the Trojan War came, Thersander sailed with the host but was cut down at Mysia by Telephus before ever they reached Ilion.4
· EXEUNT ·
How the centuries saw it
In play
Epigoni (epic)
The lost cyclic sequel to the Thebaid — the sons of the Seven take Thebes at last, and only a line or two of the old poem survives.
Epigoni
Alcmaeon, Diomedes, and the second Argive generation — the revenge war that closes the Theban cycle before Troy.
Theban Cycle
The Epigoni sit in the cycle between the Seven's failure and the Trojan generation — Cadmus' city falling twice in epic memory.
Thebaid
Statius
Statius' Latin epic ends with the Seven, but its Theban war remains the chief surviving frame for every later Epigoni retelling.